Sage Darling
Simon Jedediah Darling - AKA Sage. Sage is an active Character in the Roleplay. His face-claim is Maximiliano Pantane Personality Appearance History The Cain's Crucible Sage and Thaddeus recall how they came to be Hosts of The Cain's Crucible, some 1000 years ago... (An Exert from the RP) They were hopelessly lost, and to both the East and West stretched thousands of miles of red hot sand. Their horses had collapsed and they'd had to leave most of their haul behind. Their resources had gone; no water, no food, and no shade to be found. Their mission was still clear though, they were on a tomb hunt, and by some stroke of luck, this location had come upon the radar of both their Coven and the Templar. They had decided between them that this time the Templar would have the artifact and the Coven would go hungry for it for another century until could be relocated; the Templar's price for the item was what interested the blood brothers, but neither of them could still remember what it had been, it was too long ago and now so insignificant. '' ''The parchment Jacobus held in his hand didn't lead them where it was supposed to, and with his hand shielding his eyes he looked around again for the landmark they were supposed to be stood on top of. "It's not here." The blonde-haired knight announced, though his head was wrapped with his white tabard, they'd both long shed their armor and stood about in their underclothes. "You don't say?" Simon answered with sarcasm ringing through his heavily french accented voice, he stood with his hands on his hips, panting into the midday sun. His dark eyes squinted across the horizon. Then a thought occurred to him; the night before there had been a storm, that had whipped the desert up and swept it over the village they'd been staying in. They awoke that morning to find the streets filled with the leftover sand that had fallen from the sky like rain. Simon had remembered how the sandbanks reminded him of home, how the snow would fall in the winter against the walls of his house. There was a curious look in his eyes as he sent his hand into his pocket and retrieved his stele. "What are you doing?" Jacob asked. "Sois tout à fait." Simon snapped, shushing his companion into silence. Holding out his stele before him he focused his mind and slowly the sand beneath them rumbled and moved aside until they found themselves stood atop a stone facade. "Voilà, it is here as it was said to be." "You absolute cheat!" "I found it didn't I?" Simon asked, tucking his stele back into his pocket. "Any hedge wizard could have pulled off that trick." "Hedge wizard?! Take that back! Would you have had me dig with my bare hands?" "That would've been the honorable thing to do." "Honor? You're starting to sound like one of those Christians..." They bickered like this often, spitting comments back and forth like swordplay and they continued to as they made their way down from atop the stoney tomb and towards its entrance. Just then in the distance, over the next dune, they heard voices calling out to them though not in a tongue either of them understood. They'd been caught. An entourage of traveling merchants dressed in black garb were now racing down the sand towards them on camelback. One male in the lead made it to them first, he drew a cutlas like blade and charged over the shifting sand towards them. Yelling at them in some form of Arabic, he chased the two Warlocks away from the tomb. "What is he saying? Jacob called to Simon as they fled. "I don't speak fluent Arabic..." "Better than I do!" "Bah, something about a holy tomb." "Whose tomb?" Jacob had misheard and thought Simon had named the tomb, but then the man behind them was catching up and they heard him say; "Aibnatu qabil!" "There, Daughter of Cain!" Simon exclaimed. "That's it! The Crucible!" And just like that Jacob took a stand and turned to face the Arab with his stele wielded in his dominant hand. It came to hover before the man's face. A whisper and before them he disintegrated into the sand, his black outfit falling into a pile of cloth at their feet. None were feared more than Witches and Warlocks in this ancient land, in his ancient time, and at the sight of yet another stele being wielded caused the rest of the entourage to turn on their heels and make haste off into the distance away from the two Warlocks. '' ''Soon enough they were secreted underground, making their way through the winding passages of the tomb, with Simon's stele held aloft and crackling with flame to light their way. The tomb concluded in a hall like room, wherein an alcove the crucible should have sat, but there was nothing there but disturbed dust. Someone had beat them to their treasure. "Damn it!" Jacob's voice echoed about the tomb as he threw his arms into the air in exasperation, he turned to his brother whose eyes were, for a reason he couldn't fathom, fixated on the floor. "The thief went this way..." Simon explained in a hushed rendition of his deep and earthy timbre. Sure enough around the next corner of the tomb wall, Simon came face to face with a youngster from the merchant tribe that had discovered them earlier, and in his quivering hands, he held a stone object covered by a cloth. Somehow the boy dodged him, and flew down the passage of the tomb back into the bright sunlight, kicking up dust behind him. "After him!" Out onto the dunes, the knights chased the boy down and soon enough he perished too, as the blade of light that shot from the end of Jacob's stele split the boys into all his separate molecules and he crumbled into the sand, leaving behind only his garb. Breathlessly, Jacob hunched over his knees and waved Simon on ahead of him. There in the desert sun, upon a pile of black cloth laid their treasure, the artifact they'd been tasked to hunt; Cain's Crucible. It looked to be nothing but a stone urn, not a magnificent and priceless object of great power. There were no ancient runes carved into its surface, no glittering jewels or precious metals, but in peeling back the brown hessian it was wrapped in Simon would discover it's power. Couching down onto the sand his hand reached forward and took the object in his grasp, but to his horror, it came apart like a shattered hourglass; the ashen remained inside slipped through his fingers. His ears begun to ring and before he blacked out he heard a woman's voice echo through his skull as though she'd whispered a breathy extasy into his ear; she was released. '' ''From a few yards away Jacob watched his brother kneel before the artifact and was waiting for him to retrieve it so they could start back towards the town they'd been staying, and then hopefully go and exchange their find for their prize from the Templar, but instead he witnessed a harrowing supernatural event. Simon crashed to his knees and flung his arms out as if he'd been launched onto a crucifix, a blood-curdling growl ripped from his chest as his head was flung back with such force that his headdress was shed onto his shoulders and his long brown locks were set free. From every orifice of his face burst streams of deathly black light as the power overcame him. Sure enough, it put him down. In rushing to his companions' aid Jacob crashed to his knees in the sand and grasped ahold of Simons limp body. "Oh no no no, you don't. Simon, wake up! Wake up man, pull yourself together..." Jacob shook the firm shoulders of his brother in his hands, commanding him back to life. After a few attempts of reviving him with slaps and shakes, Jacob held out his palm over Simon's chest and closed his eyes to pray. "Earthly Father, return his light, bring him back to me. Blessed be." "Ah!" A scream of life burst from Simon's lips, his eyes opened wide to reveal they were completely black, and pouring out the same dark light as before. Yet this time it had somewhere to go, and it consumed Jacob too, as he stared down into the dead face of his Coven mate. '' ''Some hours later, they awoke on the sand and blinking into the deserts icy moonlight; they realised their power simultaneously. Everything felt different, everything felt as though it would now bend to their will; was this what it felt like to be a God? The Passage of Time ''The Dark Ages were just that. Death was commonplace, endless suffering, pain, plague, and poverty were a birthright. So it was no surprise that when their Coven's many enclaves gathered together and requested that young Warlocks put themselves forward to infiltrate the Catholic church and take part in the Crusades, under an elaborate rouse, that the two youths found themselves taking a pilgrimage to the holy land, along with twelve other boys. '' Many years of conquest all seemed to roll into one blurry dream, and it was so long ago how was the mind expected to remember any details. They attempted to piece a few memories together, once or twice over a drink but never agreed on the order of events or that some of them even happened in that lifetime. Everyone they'd ever known had died, there was no legacy to keep alive and so they'd agreed to just forget. History was written by the victors, and they never seemed to win at anything back then, they were just pawns in a large game. The turn of the century, (the nineteenth one) seemed to bring with it some hope. The feeling of constant revolution and evolution buzzed in the smoke-filled air. The world opened herself up and the people that lived in it crawled their way into a new age, through hard work and innovation. A new kind of society was born, gone were the battle hardy Knights of old, now men sweat and drew blood for a different purpose; to create and make. They built a new world for themselves and tore away from the ways of animals, everything became cleaner and more civilized. With the lamps lit they could see into the night. And as soon as places of shadow became rarer and rarer, it became harder and harder to hide. The world had already gotten considerably smaller since ships had sailed to every speck of land scattered about the swells of ocean and the major race was hard to escape from. Mortals had conquered Earth. Like every other species, they grouped and grew comfortable in their numbers. War was inevitable. First, there was one, and then there were two... The political storm had been brewing for some time, and he'd heard the news over the wireless like everyone else in Britain. Simon had somehow found himself living a Mortal life, though he knew it couldn't last long. Soon his companion of the time would notice how he never seemed to age, but still, he'd found seven years of happy courtship and marriage in Jane. He'd been growing nervous about receiving a conscription letter, but when it did arrive he'd already been gone for three weeks. Having abandoned his life in Yorkshire, Simon reached out to England's largest Coven of the time: The Monterey. The Coven's Patriarch had agreed to give him sanctuary for the price of his service during the difficult time ahead. That was how he found himself in Loughton, just outside the Epping Forest in Essex. The house he stayed in was small but cozy and also home to two sisters, both of which seemed to be rather smitten with their lodger. In truth he absolutely abused the extent of their affection, but what man wouldn't? With a War on, they could all be blown to smithereens in seconds. The Six year War came to pass and when some sense of normalcy returned Simon's feet began to twitch. He'd spend restless nights dreaming of his next chapter, the memories of a war spent doing the Coven's covert missions wasn't enough to keep his adventure-hungry heart at bay. Just across the Irish sea, James had found himself in trouble with The Marbhre... He learned his lesson in 1944; that Vampires were best left well alone. On the run, James Orwell found himself at the mercy of The Monterey also. He was taken in, seeing as Simon vouched for his blood brother and a trained Botanist, Herbalist and Medical Physician was always useful to have around. Five decades passed, the 1950s saw the two Warlocks make a transatlantic move back to America. Back to the town, Simon saw as home; Lockwood. (Some 30years after the towns founding in 1694 Simon had found himself making a family there, and it had been a place he'd always felt at peace in, it was as if the Mortal world didn't exist when he was behind the other of Maine pine trees.) The 1960s brought more social revolution and many memories both made and lost through psychedelic escape, the Summer of Love was just that for the pair of free-loving Pagans. The 1970s was a calm period, nights spent studying for the newly named Jake Thatcher and days spent writing for Jed Simons. One became a great Doctor and the other a published writer, historian, and museum curator. The 80s and 90s saw the world expand for a second or third time in their lifetime. This time it was out into the stratosphere of 'the network' which came to be known as the Internet. The threat of being discovered grew and grew until eventually, it happened. It was only a matter of time. Things didn't boil over uncontrollably until 2008 though when Mortals officially waged war on the Mythical Races. Their lives in academia were put on hold and the two Warlocks found themselves on the battlefield again. The Abbey had rallied their Coven's forces to tackle the Mortal infestation that had swarmed their Mother Earth. As usual though Jake and Jed found themselves going against the grain and making their own rules... ~ Jed has spent the day watching the ferry's sail too and from Bainbridge Island over the murky grey waters of Elliot Bay. The calmness of the Puget Sound soothed him, that was why he'd chosen the West Coast as his home, it was Maine but it was close enough... The next day, he and Magnolia would be taking a flight from Seattle Tacoma International Airport to Berlin, and what they were going to do there could easily cost them their lives. Jake would meet them on their planned layover in London. He'd been there the last few years making a name for himself as a pediatric surgeon; a 'little' job to make ends meet he'd said, which amused Jed to no end. Jake never did things by halves and his passion for his field was inspiring. Even in this time of War, his compassion was so great that he'd still endeavour to cure the sick children of a race that would see him burn at the stake. Around 3 am Jed had made his way back to the apartment, and collapsed on the couch having shed his clothes in a trail from the door. From the bedroom doorway, she watched him, and just when he closed his eyes she revealed herself and crept across the stained floorboards and curled up beside him. They talked all night long, she adored his stories. He was full of such wisdom, she called him Sage. Hindsight was a cursed thing and had he known that night would be their last together he would have made love to her. Berlin was cold in mid-February but now was the chance of a lifetime, their two chosen targets would be in the German city at the same time. An Anti Myth Hate Group aptly named Ende Volkskunde or The EV had arranged a rally, and march to take place; they were the easiest to eliminate of the two organisations that would fall victim to the Crucible. The other target was why they needed Magnolia... She was a German Witch by birth and her connections to the Stuttgart (Black Forest) Coven were useful in their mission, she was a willing participant in taking down her Coven, she sought vengeance, she had her reasons. The German Coven had plotted to attack the rally, and Jake, Jed, and Maggi had infiltrated their forces under the rouse that they also wanted revenge on the Hate group. It was true, they did want them out of the way, but what the Coven didn't know is that once the fight was over their allies would turn on them and destroy them too. They were a fundamentalist Coven and their morale compass no longer pointed north. The slogan's on the sea of protest signage was harrowing. The vibes of defiance and hatred were palpable but amidst the crowd, The Coven were in position. The despatch of the 2000 or so mortals was devastating and the magik grew darker and darker as more and more where slaughtered. Cruel and agonizing deaths befell the racist protesters and they became martyrs of their cause as the spectacle of their deaths was televised. The image of an awesome blonde haired warlock staring up at the sky with wild blue eyes had his forearms braced out from his waist and his fingers raised like claws into the air as he commanded great bolts of lightning from his palms, would go down in history. He became the poster boy of the Fall of Berlin, and that man was Jake Thatcher. He destroyed every highrise building in the cityscape that night; killing hundreds as they crumbled to rubble in the streets. Magnolia brought the fire, she lit a match and invoked a flourish of flames to spread and burnt anything left in the ruins alive. She danced in a dream-like state through the streets as if she were praying for rain when in fact she was raising hell. Her calm demeanor only made her more terrifying. Once the fires had died down after the reckoning Jake had to inform Jed that Maggi had succumbed to her own flames. Her mind was finally at peace and so she'd just let go... Anger and grief were an unbearable combination and so Jed took a deep breath to center himself. He closed his eyes and set his hands onto the ground beneath him and compelled it's movement, he shook the earth so hard that the ruins of Berlin fell into a chasm fourteen miles wide, never to be resurrected. A city was dead, and the collateral damage was catastrophic. The Crucible had left it's mark on the Earth yet again and played their part in the Mortal Mythical World War - (MMWW) A new chapter was about to open for them, they needed a convalescence. the personas of Jake Thatcher and Jed Simons, faded away and in their place Dr. Thaddeus James Owens, and Sage Jeddediah Darling where born. Random Trivia